


Sometimes A Little White Lie Is Easier Than The Truth

by Pannikin_proffesor



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28910460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pannikin_proffesor/pseuds/Pannikin_proffesor
Summary: There’s something funny about lies, the way that as you keep telling them, you seem to almost end up believing them yourself. The story as you experienced it becoming warped and soon you don’t even remember the actual truth.Sometimes it’s nicer that way, taking the fabrication over the reality. It’s easy to do when you’re the only one who saw the whole thing.Alex was the last one to arrive in the black space, he was the only one to remember what actually happened.(set mid-show when Alex has had a "freak out" and run off)
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Sometimes A Little White Lie Is Easier Than The Truth

There’s something funny about lies, 

the way that as you keep telling them you seem to almost end up believing them yourself. 

The story as you experienced it becoming warped and soon you don’t even remember the actual truth. 

Sometimes it’s nicer that way,

taking the fabrication over the reality. 

It’s easy to do when you’re the only one who saw the whole thing. 

He watches in his head as the moment replays Luke’s ecstatic excitement,  
“We’re playing the Orpheum! Do you know how many bands played here before they got huge? We’re going to be legends. Eat up boys cause after tonight everything changes.” At this point he’s not even sure if the speech was real or something that he’s just convinced himself of.

Alex taps out paradiddles on the edge of the concrete that he’s perched on, staring across the boulevard. A hand covers over his right softly and slowly, interrupting the pace and the thought spiral that was speeding along with it. 

“Hey, Alex?” He can see out of the corner of his eye Willies free hand taking off his helmet and then feels him as he clambers up beside him.  
“How’d you know where to find me?” Alex questions shifting his head slightly to peer at the other boy. Willie smiles slightly as he settles as comfortably as he can before moving to rest his head on Alex’s shoulder.

“Magic ghost powers duh.” This earns him a small chuckle from Alex as he shifts to face him sitting crossed legged, both their knees touching. “Nah but really, I could hear you thinking, well really your tapping, from a mile away. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” 

Alex shakes his head sending his Leonardo DiCaprio circa Romeo and Juliet hair into his eyes. 

“How do you know I’m not just practising?” he jokes smiling but subconsciously reaching up and brushing his hair of the way with a bit more force than necessary, scraping at his scalp and gripping at it quickly in what Willie assumes to be a grounding habit. He reaches for Alex’s hand, gently working free the tensely held strands. There’s a silence, one that feels the weight of the tension in the air and it stretches in a way Willie can’t quite register.

“Hey, Hotdog. Can you look at me?”  
Alex hadn’t even noticed that his eyes had drifted, locked on the corner of the back alley and the boulevard in front of the Orpheum. It had been a while since he’d been this spacey about everything. Usually he’d be able to knock himself out of it, but right now it felt like the only thing tethering him to his physical, or not so physical, body was Willie’s hand on his. 

“it’s not a big d-“ he begins but the tears that had threatened him since the moment he’d started lying pushed against the barrier that he had forced up against them. He pauses sighing before glancing back at Willie. Sitting there with concern on his face and skateboard by his side. He raises the hand with their fingers still loosely tangled together and places his lips to the knuckles of Willie’s hand. 

“Do you need me to go first?” the gentle question comes as he feels Alex’s warm shaky breath as his head drops resting on their intertwined fingers. He feels the subtle nod and even though he doesn’t need to breathe takes a deep breath of the quickly cooling air, taking in the slowly setting sun and the chill of the oncoming night.

“I always dreamed of running away, I took life recklessly thinking I was too young to be injured or killed. My mums always said that I took to many chances with life, and I should have listened. 

But now I’m the reason my little siblings can’t cross the road without a set of lights or a hand to hold at 14 years old. And shit was it terrifying the day that Percy got older than me. I kind of threw away any connections at that point, brushed them off for the thrill and the chase. 

That’s what got me in with Caleb, got too ambitious after trying to watch my family celebrate my 18th birthday at my graveside, skated right into the HGC and into a deal. He was the first one who seemed like he truly cared about me just for being who I was, he was encouraging of what I was interested in and found ways to give me a home. He was the father figure I never had and I love” He pauses “I loved him” the past tense of the word rings through the air. “But then he threatened the person I..” he pauses again words seeming to stick in his throat. He clears his throat “he threatened you, and I started to see everything in a way I don’t think I ever have.” 

As he finishes speaking a jolt hits Alex seemingly from the back sending him from his resting position to having almost head butting Willie’s stomach full pelt. He cups Alex’s head as the shock passes staring up at the stars and cursing himself for being stupid enough to think that Caleb would keep to his word. After what feels like an eternity the tension leaves Alex’s body, he raises his head pressing their foreheads together. 

“And I will never stop saying how sorry I am and how much seeing you in pain hurts me, I’ve seen what those jolts can do to people and I promised I’d never inflict the same pain on anyone else.” There are tears in both their eyes now and if Alex ever going to say it, he may as well say it now. There’s silence as Willie can hear Alex’s stuttering breath as he feels the tears dripping onto his leg slow in their pace.

“I had to watch them die.” It’s a whisper but this close, their breath intermingling, the words are not missed. Alex releases a breath he didn’t realise he was holding and closes his eyes willing himself to look away from the corner as he sees it all again in slow motion. 

The grimy street dogs, the alleyway behind the Orpheum, the busy street, the dodgy Oldsmobile whose brake pads had long since been worn away, the hill that they were heading down back towards the side door. 

“I told them it was the hotdogs, invented the story of us making it back inside and celebrating our achievements with a hot dog toast that was our last but,” he pauses biting his lips together and reaching for his hair again before his hands are caught, callused fingers rubbing circles into his shaking extremities, he shuffles moving his legs to rest back over the edge of the car park roof. 

“The guy we bought them from sold out of his ancient Oldsmobile that was more rust than car and definitely did not have a Food Service Permit, the car so old and beaten up that the brakes were non-existent. We didn’t even get a shout of warning as the brakes failed and 4,500 pounds of rusty metal came flying right at us. I was walking in front while Luke and Reggie were discussing some on stage shenanigans for the performance. 

It hit Reggie first, he was mucking around dancing and jumped on Luke’s shoulders who jokingly pushed him off and straight into the path of the shredded wheel.  
Luke screamed out Reggie’s name, he didn’t see it coming, turned too late. He collided with the square front of the car chest first as he turned to reach for Reggie’s lifeless form.

When I realised something had gone wrong I had no time to run as the vendor started yelling and the other customers had scrambled. 

The pain I felt in that moment I cannot describe, I copped maximum velocity at the bottom of the hill. It hit me in the corner of the back sending me spinning off into the brick wall, I had just enough time to watch the car speed off into the street and watch the bodies of my family tumble down the hill behind me as everything faded away. And when I got to them in that black space, I saw their faces and I knew I could never tell them what had really happened.” 

Another jolt rocked Alex’s frame. One so big Willie could almost see the car impacting into his frail looking form. He slowly moved to cradle Alex as he convulsed, bringing him to settle in a comfortable position. He could see every horror Alex had just described etched into the worry lines, dips and hollows of his body, there’s so much that this boy carries. His name fitting in the fight that he put up to protect his friends and their innocence even if it meant lying.

Finally, finally. Alex is allowed to rest as his eyes open to see Willie’s face upside down above him, he feels warm, safe, secure. More than he had ever in his life he quirked a sorry smile up at him before his eyes slid closed and he surrendered to the exhaustion that had been plaguing him since he had woken up. 

Technically ghosts don’t need to sleep. But bone deep exhaustion is apparently something that continues in the afterlife. Alex eventually opens his eyes to see Willie staring out at the corner that he had been fixated on before, how long ago that was he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t disturbed him with his opening eyes and didn’t quite feel up to conversation so looked to the sky. 

There was that one night in ’94. He’d just come out to his dad, having watched the recognition slip out of his eyes as the words slipped out of his mouth, and so had headed quickly out the door while his dad headed for the liquor cabinet

He’d been walking to Reggie’s house knowing the route well enough to not have to look where he was heading when suddenly everything around him went dark. He looked up and could see the stars truly for the first time. And though he would usually make some joke or sarcastic comment about how looking for signs in things was ridiculous, the sight of the ribbon of stars through the sky and the inherent feeling of smallness that came along with it was strangely comforting in that moment. It was only a power out so it didn’t last long but the memory had stuck with him.

He scans the grey and orange sky above feeling weaker every passing second but till searching for hope. It takes a minute but as his eyes adjust, he can see, however faintly, the barest light of a single star through the smog. 

Willie had an idea, but he didn’t know how it was going to go. It was risky going against Caleb and most ghosts haven’t even worked out what their unfinished business is, let alone been able to fulfil it and pass on. He’d only known one in all his years of ghosting and that was a kid who just wanted to have his parents say goodnight to him. 

In all honesty he’s terrified, he’s seen the boy’s reactions to the jolts. The unbearable pain of death having to be relived over and over again. But there’s a chance, something that might just be a part of their unfinished business. Something that’s been withheld that needs to be properly understood before anything can be done.  
But he knows how hard it’ll be for Alex, for all of them. 

He wraps Alex in his arms cherishing the moments that could possibly be one of the last they spend together and breathes in the cool night air. Anyone looking up at the car park would see nothing, but the two boys sitting on the ledge? From here they could see everything.

**Author's Note:**

> For such a goofy show the first episode is devastating. I'm just here to make it more so :) 
> 
> Any comments are always appreciated and I adore each and every one of you who has decided to click on my silly little story. More to come don't you worry


End file.
